<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>As God Intended by mothdotjpeg</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054093">As God Intended</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothdotjpeg/pseuds/mothdotjpeg'>mothdotjpeg</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Blood and slight Gore, Religious Imagery &amp; Symbolism, Rewrite of S3E06, Uffizi Art Gallery</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:22:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,007</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25054093</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothdotjpeg/pseuds/mothdotjpeg</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When two men touch, it is as if the world is at peace. It’s happened many times before, countless times. With every smell and caress. With every gun pointed and every knife cut deep into skin. They’ve bled and touched and held each other close what feels like a million times. It felt natural, needed. Things meant to be together, after months of separation, finally meeting. As He created. </p><p>(Hannibal S3 Art Gallery Scene Rewrite)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>As God Intended</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote this in one go last night and finished it at like 1:30 am. It's just 4k words about these two idiots finally accepting how they feel. I hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>And there they were. Resting tired and broken bodies on a simple bench, neither looking at each other yet, not ready. The sound of their breathing filled the air, the weight of their presence being enough in that moment. It was different than before, more loving maybe, more ache resting around them in space. Bloodied and bruised faces, eyes resting not on the other, but looking at the painting before them. Simplicity in the fact they were in the same space, the same time, the same bench, looking at the same painting. It felt intimate, a deep and rich kind of knowing. Colorful with unsaid words, hot with feelings like you could taste them in the air. It took them a moment to believe it was happening. For both of them to believe this wasn’t just a dream or a memory lost deep within their mind palace. Vivid. <br/>	They were both men. Both damaged. Their walls wore down, their identities intact. Their human suits were off. They were just men. Sitting next to each other as if it was normal. As if this had happened a thousand times. Maybe it had, in some other world. In each other’s mind palaces. They both hoped. <br/>	Hannibal, the taller of the two, was not a simple man. He was not a man of his word, and sometimes those around him doubted if he was even man. But he was. Underneath his patterned and pressed suits. Behind the smiles that adorned his lips. Through the person suit that he had tailored just right. He was a man. One who’s body ached to be held, although he rarely admitted that even to himself. A man nearing his fiftieth birthday, although he didn’t keep track. His hair was grey, had been for many years, and his skin wrinkled. But he wore it proudly. Still attracting those around him like he had his entire life. Still fitting into his person suit just right. As it was meant to be. Until times like these. These times rare indeed. When his person suit had been torn off, left behind. In a pile of organs under the hanging body of a man. In his own blood splattered on a shirt. His person suit had been forgotten, instinct driving him. Until he sat down here, cleaned of the blood that had decorated his face. The cuts and damage on show for the world to see. Letting it know he was weak, breakable even. <br/>	Will, the newcomer to the bench, was also not a simple man. He was not a man of stability, and sometimes he doubted if he was even himself anymore. But he was. The creeping darkness had been there all along, under his person suit, but he had denied it. Kept in under control. Because after all, he was a man. A man trying very hard not to cave in to these feelings. Into the uncontrollably of the world. He was a man who believed he could be saved. Hoped to wake up in a cold sweat, as he so often did, and go back to normalcy. He was a man in the middle of his life, although many days he feared it would soon end. His hair brown and curly, on occasion he wore glasses. He wore his person suit like a burden, it carried on him like a weight of inevitability. Inevitable, of course, that one day his person suit would be cracked open and he would be eaten raw. Tasted and swallowed, enjoyed for the way he was under his rescue dogs and fishing baits. He was now of course cracked. His person suit gently taken off by the man next to him. Will had been opened to the world, enjoyed from the far eyes of one Hannibal Lecter. Who had sat here waiting. Waiting for Will to give up his person suit, to join him here similarly damaged and weak. Enjoying the air, the tension, the comfort of each other’s body being close. <br/>And here they were. Smelling the blood on each other. Craving more, but feeling too weak to give in to temptation. Taking their time to look. For while both of them wanted to see each other stripped of their person suit, tried to force each other out of them, they didn’t know if they were ready. Ready to look at each other, here in an art museum in Florence. If either of them would be able to handle the sight of their naked, unaltered, honest selves. So they sat in the other sensations of each other. Waiting till they felt strong enough to look, dare to see the person they craved so much to view. <br/>It was Hannibal who looked first. Maybe because he had stripped away the layers of Will’s human suit years ago, helped the man give in to the desires so deeply hidden. Maybe because he felt weak to the temptation, not wanting to wait another moment without looking upon the beautiful man who had found him here. Either way, he had turned his head slowly, eyes taking in every aspect of the man next to him. The physical aspects, of course. The simple slim black suit that Will wore, a soft blue shirt underneath that lay unbuttoned at the top. Soft skin leading up his neck, a neck Hannibal’s hand had missed the feel of. A reminder of what he had been missing, a craving for the last time he had seen Will, deep inside his chest. The soft brown hair that had been between Hannibal’s fingers as he had held Will’s bleeding broken body close to his. Blood spilling from him, from Hannibal’s hand no doubt. The smell of wet clothes, and pain, and deep intimate love flooding his senses momentarily. And then his gaze had rested on Will’s face. It too looked soft, surrendered. Focused on the painting ahead, everything at ease. Like he was relaxed, relieved to be here finally with him. Physical beauty and intimacy dripping from every pore of Will’s body. But Hannibal didn’t only notice his slumped shoulders, hands clasped in front of him. He noticed the red hot passion in Will’s breaths, the aching orange in Will’s stomach, and the cold darkness in Will’s mind. Daring him to do the worst, daring him to give in. It made Hannibal almost sigh, sitting there, admiring the artwork that sat before him. And oh, how weak he was. How easily he gave in to his desires. <br/>“If I saw you every day, forever, Will. I would remember this time.” If there was any bit of his human suit that had been left covering his yearning body, it was gone as he breathed out the words. This was it. This is how he wanted, needed, it to be. He needed to be stripped clean of the person he had been. Erasing whatever act he had been playing, this was what he had been craving. Honesty, forgiveness, intimate passion. The breaths they were sharing, the place in time that their body now rested. This is how it was meant to be. No one could tell Hannibal otherwise. He didn’t dare to hide the emotion in his eyes, begging God to let Will look at him. Respond. Tell Hannibal that this is all he ever wanted too. <br/>The words had been said. They had entered the silence in Will’s mind. And he almost moaned with satisfaction. The deep brokenness inside him, the insecurity, the darkness, the abyss of his mind craved the meaning in Hannibal’s words. If the man next to him had remained silent, Will wouldn’t have turned to look. Wouldn’t have given in. Out of fear that still lingered inside him despite his best efforts. But as soon as he felt Hannibal’s eyes taking him in, searching his body and mind, he knew it was all he had ever craved too. He stopped denying himself the pleasure, and he turned to look away from the painting. Months of waiting, searching, of loneliness, and despair. They had led to this. His face stretched into an earnest smile, feeling the happiness fill his bones. Seeping through his pores and scars, into his muscles and organs. The eyes that rested on him that craved to consume him, they made him feel what his weak and tired mind could only describe as bliss. Joy. Want. <br/>That smile, simple and honest. Will’s eyes took in Hannibal, and he watched. Watched as Will’s gaze stayed steadily on his. Not fond of eye contact? That human suit had been discarded now. Will had denied himself the feelings, the longing glances, and admiring gaze. But not anymore. Now he could look at Hannibal, the one person who truly knew Will’s mind, and he could crave to consume it too. <br/>“Strange,” He started, never wanting to look away from Hannibal again. “seeing you here in front of me.” And it was. It was strange to look at someone who he had missed, craved, admired from afar all these months. He had grown attached to the memories in their time away. Growing like ivy. Up and around the yearning that whispered to him alone at night. “I’ve been staring at after-imagines of you in places you haven’t been in years.” He looked away as he spoke, lost in the memories of remembering. The early mornings when he woke up, half expecting Hannibal to be there with him. Although he denied himself the place to think about what that meant. What it meant to crave the person who had hurt him in so many ways. Crave the man who understood him better than anyone else. The man who wanted to enjoy him in more ways than one. Hannibal’s gaze followed Will’s, back to the painting in front of them, away from each other. Maybe all this was too much for their weak bodies. But neither of them cared. They would let themselves break if that meant that they were here. Together. Finally. <br/>“To market, to market, to buy a fat pig. Home again, home again. Jiggity-jig.” Their eyes still lingered ahead, their bodies felt like they were growing increasingly closer and closer, although both men stayed still. A smile rested on both their lips, Will licking his before turning his head ever so slightly towards Hannibal. Still not daring to look again, worried that he wouldn’t be able to look away. Not worried, just waiting. <br/>“I wanted to understand you,” His gaze settling on the sketchbook that was resting in Hannibal’s lap, hands sitting there casually. “before I laid eyes on you again.” They both felt safe, bodies close but eyes resting somewhere else. As if the world was shielding them from harm or discomfort. Hannibal listened, feeling a soft joy from hearing Will’s dry and tired voice next to him. “I needed it to be clear...” Silence for a moment as Will swallowed, soaking in the seconds when it was sure to feel safe. And then, he looked back up at Hannibal’s face. “-what I was seeing.” His eyes met Hannibal’s, soft and simple. Of course, it was safe. To be here with him. Comfortable and protected and understood. Their bloody faces yearned to be closer. If Will closed his eyes he could feel the crook of Hannibal’s neck, the warmth of his arms around him. But he doesn’t close his eyes, he doesn’t want to waste another second not looking at the man sat next to him. They breathe. They exist together. Just like they crave, like they want it to be. <br/>“Where does the difference between the past and the future come from?” Every word spoken between them is heavy with meaning. The men cherish each sound the other makes, remembering all the time they had without the other around. <br/>“Mine?” Will asked into the space between them. Soaking up the meaning lost in Hannibal’s question, never daring to look away. His eyes show the questioning tone, unlike his partner who is still, waiting for Will to continue. A battle behind each other’s eyes, both craving to know the story. To hear the other’s fights. Wins and losses from the months they have been apart. Wondering what led the other to right here and now. “Before you and after you.” Part of Will craved to look away. The part that is still attached to who he once was, and the human suit he once wore. Every part of him felt weak enough to cave in, but he didn’t. He wouldn’t dare to disappoint the man in front of him, he yearns too much. “Yours?” He leans in as he speaks, daring Hannibal to do something, maybe. Maybe because he’s giving in to the feelings in his chest. Hannibal just watches Will. Like he always had. Like he always will. He doesn’t respond, just watches as Will looks away from him. Lost in thought. <br/>“It’s all starting to blur.” They both felt it. The way the air seemed soupy. Red hot. Aching orange. And cold darkness. The older man’s gaze lingering on the face he wanted to hold close. The younger feeling everything in the space around him. Everything he’d ever felt, and everything Hannibal had too. Like they were one. Built from the same design. Copied from the same blueprint. Separated at birth. Meant to fit back together perfectly. “Mischa.” Hannibal’s mind went blank. Not surprised, never surprised. Just letting himself feel it, as he could always feel it. “Abigail.” It was Will’s turn to look at the man next to him, and it was Hannibal’s turn to gaze blankly into the space around them. Names of people he secretly held dear, but never let anyone see. Except for Will. Will always saw. “Chiyoh.” They were both gazing at the painting, lost in thought. Hannibal took a deep breath and controlled it. The feelings. As he always could. Expect for Will. Will always broke the pattern. <br/>“How is Chiyoh?” Hannibal asked innocently, letting his gaze rest on Will once more. Every time wondering why he bothered looking away. <br/>“She pushed me off a train.” It was spoken absentmindedly like this was how they often spoke. He didn’t bother to look, still studying the painting ahead, feeling Hannibal’s eyes on him. Before Hannibal chuckled, Will felt it coming. Before Hannibal spoke, Will knew what he was going to say. Like Hannibal was him. Like he was Hannibal. <br/>“Atta girl.” Silence resumed. The casualness of the conversation felt welcomely weird. Oddly normal. Like this was just a memory in a mind palace. They both knew, they both hoped that it wasn’t. <br/>“You and I,” Both of them looking ahead, Will squeezing his eyes closed for just a moment. A second in time when it could be comfortable and simple, without the sight or sensation of it. “have begun to blur.” The two men, weak and complex, had accepted it. Since the moment they had entered the same room, sat on the same seat, breathed the same air. When they had given in and looked at each other, not hiding how they felt. They knew they were blurring together. <br/>“Isn’t that how you found me?” A million things threaded through those words, a million meanings and feelings that he knew Will understood. That he didn’t have to say. Isn’t that why you love me? Isn’t that why you searched for me? Sailed to find me? Isn’t that why you let yourself get broken and bloody? For me. Because we are one and the same. Because we cannot exist apart? Hannibal was too weak to say it while admiring Will, too scared, although he would never admit it. Because part of him still didn’t know Will. Even though Will knew all of him. With the pools and seas and oceans of pure unadulterated empathy that lay behind his scarred skin. Will didn’t say yes, he didn’t respond with an answer someone normal would understand. <br/>“Every crime of yours feels like one I am guilty of.” His mouth uttered the words, admitted it into the universe. “Not just Abigail’s murder,” His head turning, his tone lowering so only Hannibal could hear. “every murder stretching backward and forward in time.” They were looking at each other now, heads turned toward each other. Wishing to be closer, although the conversation didn’t call for it. Not yet. <br/>“Freeing yourself from me and me freeing myself from you, they are the same.” In its own way, in a way only the two of them could understand, it was a validating sentence. One meant just for Will. So that he could cave in and stop feeling guilty for Hannibal’s crimes. Not because Will did not commit them, they were the same. They shared the same actions and mistakes. But because Hannibal did not feel guilty. Because Hannibal felt good and at peace. And for the months and years that Will had felt the guilt, underneath it he had felt that too. He had hidden it, pretended that he wasn’t the person he really was under his person suit. But he was human, wasn’t he? Weren’t he and Hannibal human? Acting in God’s image? <br/>“We’re conjoined,” Will smiled. Hannibal watched, his face blank of emotion. Conjoined in their own way, unlike twins born sharing limbs and bones. They were put in this world to conjoin here and now. Resting their tired bodies, minds the same. The simplicity of their glances, meeting eyes before looking away. When they looked at each other, they saw themselves within the irises of their eyes. They saw everything they needed, craved, wanted. Every desire resting in each other’s palms. Inches away from what they both surely needed. But never leaning too close, never saying anything directly. Playing a game they have always played, if they had noticed until now or not. <br/>“I’m curious whether either of us can survive separation.” There was nothing around them, nothing that mattered. Hannibal’s attention solely on the way Will talked, how his face looked as he blinked and breathed and sighed. Mesmerizing beauty sat in front of him, speaking to him. Part of him had been worried that he would never get to see him again. Foolish thinking, of course, they found each other. But he didn’t show the emotion on his face, or with the way that he had looked at Will. Remaining his usual old self, maybe parts of him were holding onto the person suit. He didn’t mind.<br/>“Now is the hardest test,” He felt how Will felt. The younger man wasn’t a copied image of Hannibal, just like he was not for Will. There was always emotion behind his eyes, unable to control how he felt. For he felt so much. A human. Caught up in it all. “Not letting rage and frustration,” They knew each other better than anyone else, they were conjoined. But they expressed and felt and controlled themselves differently. For they were both men. “-nor forgiveness keep you from thinking.” Thinking. For Hannibal, he meant rationally. The way he thought, without the emotions. But he knew Will. He knew the way Will thought, for he had pried inside his mind. Craved to devour it. Will was a man full of rage, for those he had lost. Frustration for the person suit he had thrown away. And that forgiveness he felt. Forgiving Hannibal for what he had done. Forgiving himself for how he felt. Forgiveness, maybe others would have described it more like acceptance. Will had never set aside his feelings, he had never thought uninfluenced. So Hannibal waited. He watched the emotion drain from Will’s eyes. Empathy, so familiar but it felt old. Forgotten in these months apart. Eyes sometimes hidden behind glasses, now empty. Just for a moment, thinking like Hannibal. Not a new occurrence. Nothing was new with them. It felt old. <br/>For a moment, it felt cold. The darkness drowned them, or maybe they drowned themselves in it. In the blood covering Will’s hands as he tried to stop Abigail from bleeding out. In the deep emotional lust that wove under every interaction they had. In the cold, freezing, endless dark. But Will wouldn’t be himself without emotion. He couldn’t breathe without it. Without it, he might as well have died on the floor of Hannibal’s Baltimore house what seemed like eons ago. So, as Hannibal watched, Will’s eyes flooded back with emotion. And he moved, not too close, just ever so slightly towards the man next to him. Because he was weak. He was tired. He let his desires win. Just ever so slightly. <br/>Hannibal saw it, the look in his eyes and the movement towards him. A man of control. A man who could hold back his feelings, living vicariously through a man with endless empathy. So he looked away, leaving the man next to him leaned forward. A bit too awkward. He watched the floor, feeling Will’s body move back to how they were before. Just for a moment. But nothing was new with them, was it? So maybe they had done this before. In a memory, in a mind palace. What was the difference anymore? </p><p>Two bodies who are meant to be but a blur. Two men, raised and grown, meant to come together. Conjoin. Be one and the same. Red hot passion. Orange aching. They were too simple of words to describe when they finally meet. When two men touch, it is as if the world is at peace. It’s happened many times before, countless times. With every smell and caress. With every gun pointed and every knife cut deep into skin. They’ve bled and touched and held each other close what feels like a million times. It felt natural, needed. Things meant to be together, after months of separation, finally meeting. As He created. Those feelings cannot be described. They aren’t meant to be. For no one knows that power until they touch it. </p><p>When they met, sitting on a bench, it was how it was meant to be. Will Graham gave in. Let the power feel good. The people who were gone were gone. How it felt to take their lives felt like God wanted it. He stopped lying. Stripped whatever person suit was left and touched the man next to him. The one who was sitting there, free from his past. His person suit gone. Emotion in his eyes, uncaring to let someone see. The man who had waited for so long to find another who could dare to understand him. He had been patient, he had also been stupid. So many times he had pushed the one he needed away in the name of emotionless actions. But here, as Will Graham kissed Hannibal Lecter. It felt as if none of it mattered. As if the words he had said, the forgiveness he had spoken into the air hoping for Hannibal to hear, was the simplest way to express how he felt. He had known the meaning behind those words, but he had put his emotions aside. Waiting for Will to come. And here he was. <br/>They kissed. Softly, simply. A million unsaid words exchanging as their lips touched. It felt better than the knife carving someone’s body. It felt better than holding one another, bleeding out. It felt better than all the meaningless kisses the men had had before. It felt like God intended it. As Will reached out to touch Hannibal, holding on tightly, whispering words into the space between as their lips separated, it felt like God intended. <br/>	“We were created in his image, Will.” Responding to an unspoken thought. As they blurred together, staring at the person who they were meant to touch and kiss and understand. <br/>	“That’s why it feels so good?” Will asked, desperately wanting to kiss him again. To never let go of this man, this weakened broken man. His words meant more than just the kiss and the touches. Hannibal knew because they always knew. <br/>	“Yes. That’s why it feels so good.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! Please feel free to comment, give kudos, and share ;D</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>